


Fighting Sleep

by suqua (cwsunrise)



Series: Bunker!Boyfriends 'Verse [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Boyfriends, Human Castiel, M/M, Massage, Sleep Deprivation, Sleepy Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cwsunrise/pseuds/suqua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stripped of his grace, Castiel taxes his human body to the point of exhaustion while trying to find answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fighting Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this one for a while. It's really ironic right now because I'm putting off sleep to post it.
> 
> Also! What with the season over and stuff revealed, this and future chapters of these fics will be reflecting the canon up to the season 8 finale. But I won't be editing the actual previous chapters, that'd be weird. They're close enough, anyway. 
> 
> And if you haven't noticed... These fics are not sequential. They can be read standalone if you wish.

Getting used to a human Castiel sleeping nightly had been strange. He needed pajamas, which he wound up not wearing half of most of the time because he liked wearing just pajama pants, toothbrushes and new toothpaste because he thought that the minty toothpaste they had was too bitter.

Not to mention that he’d switched from the guest bed to Dean’s.

It was easier to teach Castiel the little human things after he and Dean had clearing the air and, well, becoming a couple. Kevin had even stuck around for a while, helping out where he could. Kevin didn't think it made sense to ditch them when some kind of heavenly catastrophe had happened. _Besides_ , he had said, _wasn't like he had anywhere special to be._ They had a lot of research to do in the meantime, figuring out how to fix heaven and sort through the hundreds of stranded angels scattered around the planet.

When it came down to it, Castiel's sleeping habits had been one of the last things on anyone’s mind. It took weeks for any of them to notice.

While Castiel understood virtually everything about sleep, all the benefits he could rattle off, he didn’t really understand his own sleep or understood that thing he felt was tiredness. Sleep didn’t rank as important to him from the start. Unfortunately, he was incredibly good at staving off sleep to the point of utter exhaustion.

After they got back to the bunker and Castiel had had his first morning as human, he’d generally followed the same schedule as Dean. Neither of them slept well for about a week, keeping watch over Sam as he slept off whatever the hell not finishing the trials had done to him. They stayed up late, often went to bed when it was getting light out, then slept until they were fairly rested.

But it was only after Sam recovered that things started to resemble normalcy again. Dean was sleeping better as soon as Sam was waking and sleeping like a human again, but with that came the realization that Castiel was often the last to sleep and the first to wake. He was often puttering around the room restlessly or lying awake next to Dean. Then there were the nights where he wouldn’t appear or stay in bed at all.

It happened gradually. They weren't doing much other than keeping an eye on Sam and trying to scrape some information out of somewhere. Even Kevin couldn't find anything helpful on the angel tablet. 

 _When Sam, the research-loving maniac is better,_ Dean promised Castiel, _we'll really get down to business and figure out what the hell happened and how to fix it._

When that actually happened, Sam wanted to know how far they'd gotten and wasn't happy when he learned they had nothing and no leads. But it wasn't the first time they'd had to start from barely-more-than scratch, so they got right into it.

Throwing himself into even the most vague research they could find, Castiel would work himself to the bone. It wasn’t a problem until there were one too many nights with him falling asleep at the dinner table or slumped over a book. The skin under his eyes went from a bit dark to really dark overnight, making it obvious just how little sleep he was getting.

It was strikingly similar to a portion of Dean’s childhood. Tiny, tiny Sam staying up late trying to wait for John to come back from wherever he was in those early days. He would refuse sleep until he was nodding off where he stood, eyes bubbling with sleepy tears.

The truly awkward part was that Castiel was, in fact, a grown man. It wasn't easy to tell an adult to go to bed, though they all tried to nudge him to sleep better for a time. He'd usually go off if someone told him outright, but he had also taken to saying he was fine or not tired and continuing his work. 

One particularly exhausting evening, Castiel had started nodding off at the dinner table. His fork was nearly slipping out of his hand as he tried to eat pasta. He slumped on his elbows at the table, clumsily poking at a piece of chicken in the sauce. After a few minutes of watching him nearly nod off, Dean had finally hauled him out of his chair and across the bunker. After herding the stubborn man into their shared bedroom, he somehow got him into pajama pants with his teeth brushed before trying to get him under the covers. “You’re tired, Cas!”

“I’ve told you, Dean. I’m fine, I can still assist-”

“No. You can’t. You’re still not good at this, man. You falling asleep at the table is your body telling you that it _needs_ rest.”

Castiel’s mouth pursed before he took a breath so his words came out steadily. “You and Sam would get by on a minimal amount of sleep-”

“Because we _had_ to! And we still slept better than you have been. Now we have a home with freakin’ memory foam mattress beds and everything, Cas!”

Hand twitching at his side, Castiel’s fingers find a pinch of his pajama pants. He swallows, eyes finding the floor. His voice goes small. “...I want to help.”

Words died in Dean’s throat and his mouth closed against his next argument. He felt a tiny wave of guilt before he sighed. “You _are_ helping, Cas. But you'd help a lot  more if you'd get some rest.”

“My brothers-”

Dean sighed. “I know, Cas. We’re working on it. We’ll get there.”

It was obvious that Castiel was too tired to argue any further, merely nodded sadly at the spot on the floor.

Dean swallowed once, feeling a trickle of nervousness seep through. “You have to at least  occasionally get some sleep, enough to keep you on your toes. Okay?” This was getting to the point where he was just telling his boyfriend/partner/whatever what to do and that was making him vaguely uncomfortable.

When Castiel didn’t respond right away, continuing to stand there with a slight sway, Dean’s stomach knotted a little. Crossing the half of the room between them, Dean lifted his hands and lightly held onto Castiel’s wrists. “Hey.”

Castiel looked up at him, undereyes entirely too dark. Dean ducked his head and sighed. 

Dean leaned down and kissed Castiel gently, not surprised when it takes a moment to get a response. Castiel's hand rotated in Dean's so their fingers brushed and with a tiny quirk they were holding hands. Dean rubbed his thumbs over Castiel's knuckles gently as they kissed quietly in the center of their bedroom.

After a moment, Dean has to pull away, cheeks a little rosy. “I’ll go to bed too,” he said, “Just lemme get my uh, my pjs.” He stepped back, a tiny clearing of his throat to hide his embarrassment at the suddenly tender moment. Even though they were in this...thing, it was still a little new.

Castiel nodded slowly, apparently content to stand in the middle of the room staring until Dean pointed to Castiel’s side of the bed. “ Hey. Bed. Enjoy the show _under_ the covers, Cas.”

Giving him a look, Castiel walked to his side of the bed. Before he slid under the covers, he clumsily pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it onto the floor. Castiel didn’t like wearing pajamas, usually.

Opting for his shorts and a fresh but rumpled tee shirt, Dean dropped his clothes to the laundry pile amassing at the foot of the bed. He glanced over at Castiel and an inkling of an idea popped into his head.

Instead of lying down, he sat cross legged next to Castiel’s blanket covered middle and resignedly told him, “Lie on your stomach.”

“You _said_ -” Castiel instantly protested.

“Just do it!”

Flipping over, Castiel turned his head to watch Dean. “I don’t see the purpose of this. My organs will sink and put pressure on-”

“Cas. No talking.”

It looked like Castiel was going to argue but instead he went quiet and then just stared at him. Dean’s hands fidgeted in his lap. “Close your eyes, man.”

Castiel gave him a brief withering look before his eyes closed and he let out a muffled sigh against the pillow. After a second of assurance that Cas’ eyes were closed, Dean picked himself up and brought his knee onto one side of Cas’ hips. He sat across his ass, face going a little warm because this was the kind of intimate stuff he didn’t usually do. A couple of girls had done this for him, a long time ago, but he’d never done it for anyone else.

Dean reached for a bottle of lotion, lying on it’s side on the nightstand. He slicked his hands and waited a second before pressing his hands lightly to Castiel's back.

While he hadn’t protested from the start, Castiel's body twitched as Dean touched his shoulderblades. Freezing, Dean realizes that if angels did indeed have wings like those shadows he's seen now and then, this is where they'd sprout from Castiel's back. "Okay?" He asks quietly. He watches Castiel carefully and doesn't continue until he gets a faint nod. He brushed his hands over those spots again, causing a full-body shudder in Castiel that Dean hadn't expected. Clearly Castiel didn't either, by the tiny gasp that escapes his mouth.

Trying to remember what he’d seen on a late-night special on sensual massage that Dean would never in his life admit to watching all the way through, he started at the shoulders. Dean wished they had one of those white noise machines or something. That would’ve been way less weird than just awkward backrubs.

With his slickened hands, he spread the lotion over Castiel’s shoulders. Dean started to press his thumbs down over Castiel’s shoulders, looking for tension and finding it pretty easily. He guessed that, as a vessel, this body hadn’t had to deal with any of those regular muscle pains that humans suffered just from sitting around a lot. It only took a few moments for Castiel to relax a little more, tired eyes drooping a little more.

When he started to press and slide his fingers up from Castiel’s lower back, he earned a low groan. “You doing okay?” Dean asked quietly. All he got in response was something that sounded like a growl and a sigh. “Good.”

Dean didn’t actually think this would work, pretty much just trying it out of hope for Castiel to have a good night’s sleep for once. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long. It only took a little over ten minutes for Castiel’s body to go heavy and his face to smooth. Even breaths puffed out of his slightly open mouth, utterly lulled into sleep.

Unable to believe his luck, Dean slowly picked himself up off of Castiel and went to stand off of the bed. He watched Castiel a moment, took in a breath and let it out slowly. Okay, tricking a former angel of the lord to get a decent night’s rest with a massage was kind of funny. They’d been through a lot but rubbing Cas’ back until he fell asleep had never been among the things that Dean would’ve thought they’d go through.

Then again, he’d definitely never thought he’d be crawling into bed next to this whiny, sleepy nerdy guy...and here he was.

Crawling in next to Castiel after hitting the lights, Dean pulled the blanket over his shoulder facing Castiel. He noted, with only the scant bit of light from the hallway, that the furrowed line between Castiel’s eyebrows had appeared again. He frowned slightly, just looking for a moment before lifting a hand back out and gently nudging the little anxious wrinkle with his finger.

“Boop,” Dean muttered under his breath, swallowing a chuckle at his own stupid joke.

Castiel’s eyebrows got a bit more annoyed and his mouth smacked a little before he pushed his face into the pillow with a grumble.

Biting his lips to keep from laughing, Dean watched him a second longer before tilting his head forward until their foreheads are close but not quite touching. They're going through a lot of crap lately, and Dean couldn't be happier that Sam was doing better. Castiel was still struggling, but Dean couldn't really blame him for trying so damn hard. Ever since that night, he'd had guilt weighing on him as his brothers and sisters fell through the sky. There wasn't much he could do about that, but Dean could make sure his angel got a good night's sleep now and then. He could do that.

Dean's hand finds Castiel’s. His fingers twitch when Dean laces his own through them.

"Cas," Dean says quietly, glad when Castiel continues to sleep. "I'll watch over you, okay? I got you."

He falls asleep holding Castiel's hand.


End file.
